UK's prime minister vows tariffs protection

The United Kingdom's Prime Minister Keir Starmer has vowed to protect his nation's producers from the worst ravages of the United States' new tariffs on imports.

With UK exports to the US now subject to at least US President Donald Trump's 10-percent baseline tariff, Starmer said on Sunday he will support his country's enterprises, while also working to secure a UK-US trade deal that could sweep most tariffs aside.

"We stand ready to use industrial policy to help shelter British business from the storm," he wrote in The Sunday Telegraph newspaper. "Some people may feel uncomfortable about this — the idea the state should intervene directly to shape the market has often been derided. But we simply cannot cling on to old sentiments when the world is turning this fast."

He said his country will also work with other nations to maximize exports to new markets.

Starmer made the comments as the Indian-owned, UK-based multinational carmaker Jaguar Land Rover said the 25-percent tariff the US has imposed on auto imports had prompted it to "pause" all shipments to the country, while it works on addressing "the new trading terms".

The US is the UK auto industry's second-largest export market, after the European Union, and a Jaguar Land Rover spokesperson told the BBC the company had decided to take "some short-term actions" while formulating "mid- to longer-term plans".

The UK exported 8.3 billion pounds ($10.7 billion) of automobiles to the US during the 12 months that ended after the third quarter of 2024, making the sector the largest by value of all the UK's exports to the US. In total, the UK exported around 60 billion pounds of goods to the US last year, with machinery and pharmaceuticals also major contributors.

The imposition of the 10-percent baseline tariff, which took effect on Saturday, and the impending 25-percent tariffs on auto parts, vehicles, steel, and aluminum has spooked the UK stock exchange, with the FTSE 100 index, which measures the performance of the 100 leading enterprises listed on the London Stock Exchange, nosediving by 4.9 percent on Friday, the steepest decline since 2020.

With many other markets around the world reacting similarly, analysts have said we could be headed toward a global recession.

Starmer has said he does not want to make things worse by "jumping into a trade war" with Washington and instead plans to respond to Trump's tariffs calmly.

But he has also said "nothing should be off the table" and he talked to his French counterpart President Emmanuel Macron, on Saturday and was set to talk to several other European leaders throughout the weekend in a bid to coordinate the continent's response to the huge changes the US has forced upon international trade.

earle@mail.chinadailyuk.com